35 drills performed with Drillguide Autopilot: flexible & efficient

A considerable amount of new infrastructure is currently being built for wind farms in the North Sea. Cables are being installed between the landfall sites on the Maasvlakte beach and the high-voltage station about 5 km / 3 mi away. This allows offshore wind energy to be connected to the power grid.

Van Vulpen has carried out many drills on the Maasvlakte for this purpose. A significant portion, no fewer than 35 drills, were surveyed by Brownline using the Drillguide Gyro Steering Tool and GPS track. For this project, we deployed our latest innovative steering service: Drillguide Autopilot. The contractor was able to benefit from the flexibility and autonomy this new system offers.

Thanks to Drillguide Autopilot, a highly accurate HDD drill can be conducted at any time, from any location. The system is designed to be user-friendly, allowing the drilling engineer to get started quickly and efficiently. Through a simple step-by-step plan on the tablet, the drilling engineer prepares everything for the first rod to be drilled.

Drillguide Autopilot provides the drilling engineer with maximum flexibility to start as soon as the drilling team is ready and the preparations are completed. Additionally, the drilling crew can leave the system on-site and start with the next drill directly the following day, allowing the project to continue immediately. Thus, drilling can begin independently at any desired time. For these 35 drills at one location, this was an ideal solution for Van Vulpen to carry out the project as efficiently as possible.

The HDD crossings on the Maasvlakte were very diverse. At several locations, parallel crossings were drilled, up to six or seven side by side.

In total, all crossings had a combined length of nearly 14 km (more than 8.5 mi). The shortest crossing was 192 m (630 ft) and the longest crossing was 1239 m (4065 ft). Four crossings were longer than 1000 m (3280 ft). These were two pairs of parallel drills.

The two longest drills (1239 & 1178 m, 4065 & 3864 5 ft) made an S-curve and crossed two roads. There were also drills with horizontal curves up to 40 degrees.

Nine drills crossed underneath the dune area with the exit point on the beach. In such drills under sensitive nature, mud pressure measurements are crucial to reduce the risk of inadvertent returns. Brownline’s Pressure-While-Drilling service can also be used in Drillguide Autopilot projects. The driller then receives an immediate notification if the measured pressure exceeds a pre-set threshold value.

Various technical innovations ensured an efficient and sustainable execution of this project. For instance, Van Vulpen worked with fully electric drilling rigs and vehicles. Equipment was charged on-site using mobile charging stations.

By carrying out the drills with Drillguide Autopilot, Van Vulpen had full control over when they could start drilling. Since the system was often used for multiple drills in succession, it greatly reduced transport movements resulting in reduced emissions. In this way, Drillguide Autopilot directly contributed to the efficient and sustainable progress of this project.

Brownline is proud that we have been able to deploy this new service on such a large scale together with our longtime client Van Vulpen.